The Prison of my Mind
by Phantom Phan Phorever
Summary: Erik's past will never stop tormenting him, no matter what.


"Come and see the Living Corpse, the devil's child! He is Satan's spawn, with the voice of an angel!"

I hear that cold, gravelly voice that has forever haunted me. I know it can only to belong to Javert, the man who has tainted every inch of my flesh so that it may be permanently engraved in my psyche that I was a horror to behold and nothing more. I open my sore eyes ever so slowly, yet cautiously, to have my suspicions be confirmed. I am indeed back at the gypsy camp from so long ago from my childhood, my prison.

I see Javert through the bars of my camp, welcoming in people by the dozens, and as I look closer, I find a startling discovery. All the people who have come to gawk me are those from my past. Giovanni, Luciana, Marie, Father Mansart, Marie, the Shah, Nadir, Reza my mother, even my _father!_ Not to mention the countless faces of those I know not personally as I do the others. As the last people come in the tent to see me perform, my heart sinks.

Even in my hunched position I can recognize her. I twist slightly, trying to get more comfortable so that I might see her more properly. But what is she _doing_ here! And what is that at her side…? I realize with a clenching of my hands that Christine has come with her boy!

Javert goes for his whip and walks towards my cage to 'welcome' me back. I won't cry, if I am to be humiliated by being beat and stripped of my mask I will at least retain what little dignity I have left.

He is coming, laughing, celebrating for my torture to come. I give him my firmest glare, a glare that promises the most diabolic torture I could come up with. His will be a horrible death if he does not end me here and now, and how sad that it might be him who kills _'The Phantom'. _

I try not to look or acknowledge anyone, but it as if some unknown force is making me look at every face in the tent. My mother, my father, they laugh, this is what an awful, deformed offspring of such beauty deserves! Father Mansart and Marie both look with amusement for the suffering and pain I had caused in their lives. Luciana and Giovanni weep in happiness that I will suffer for Luciana's death and Giovanni's endless torment. Nadir and Reza, smiling in triumph for I, Erik, took Reza's life. As for the Shah, he laughs maniacally for I took his life. I see Joseph Buquet even!

Oh, but nothing can compare to what I see now, the furthest from my bars, Christine and the boy, both laugh and cry both that I can now suffer for their persistent anxiety, the fear that I might kill them. For once in my life, I feel remorse for the pain and suffering I have caused to every person here. I'm sorry for my face, my temper, my voice, and my murderous traits.

Javert has now made his way into my cage and laughs maniacally. I know what is to come next.

I wait, looking away from Christine whose gaze does nothing to ease my embarrassing tremors. Then I hear it, the telling crack of the whip a second before it come slicing at my marred back.

The pain is too vast! It seems that the beatings hurt worse than they did in my youth. Now I am being beat, and gawked by my victims, just as I did them. But that's not the worst part. The worst part is that I cannot speak to them, there is an undeniable hatred in my throat against some of these watching aggressors. And that alone breaks my voice entirely.

Oh the irony! I am suffering the same way they did, by words and whips and stares. _Ugly, monster, disgrace, horrendous_, and _dreadful_ are only some of the scarring words that I am being called.

Ah Christine, I hear her just as the others! Those words she calls me will haunt me for the rest of my life, however long that may be. _Christine, my sweet, naive Christine! How I have tainted you! Your cruelty hurts me the most, and the words I hear from you I shall never forget I am no angel, I am no phantom, I am just Erik._ No one understands, no one knows my darkness! Even her beautiful voice cannot soothe the sting of her words; they only serve to mock me. Her voice was once my voice – and now it turns against its liberator.

_The irony, the irony!_

I realize with some sense of dark humor that I have become numb to the whips at my back only by drowning in other sorrows. It seems that thinking of better days is too heavy a contrast against the horrible pain of now. My only escape is to face other pains.

This will scar me mentally and physically, the words, the whips! I am now bleeding, and against my wishes, I am weeping from the pain. Not only am I crying from the physical pain, I am mostly crying for the cruelty I so deserve from my audience.

Javert now leaves my prison, much to my relief. Is it my twisted imagination, or is my cage closing in? Everyone is screaming, wailing, laughing, and crying in delight for I am in pain!

"Christine! Christine!" I cry out for the first time, she looks with a raised brow, as if insulted that I might call now to her. I am being crushed, killed, from the bars closing in around me. They're getting closer and closer!

Ah, the pain! I hear cracks of my bones! I feel them splintering my skin! Only adding to the blood and scars.

Should I be dead? No, for this is real life. My prison is my mind; the people will always be there in my conscious, tormenting poor Erik. Try as I might, but I will never get be free of my past. The deaths, the pain, the constant suffering, they are now part of me.

As I wake, I grasp the cold air, wishing, _wishing_, I had comfort. Only wishing though, for I am the cold, unfeeling darkness who can only yearns for warm light. I am Erik, only Erik. A man whose mind won't rest. A man, just a man.

I bite back a cackle as I think of the opera house above who know me as _The Phantom._

_Oh, the irony.._

_I would like to give a big 'Thank You' to ButterflyBird for making this fanfic a thousand times better than it originally was! And thank YOU for reading this fanfic!_


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